


Brutally Murdering Odin

by psychicmewhealer



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, STARSET (Band), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Band Fic, Blood, Brother Feels, Brotherhood, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Erik Satie, Evil Odin (Marvel), Fun, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Malnutrition, Murder, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Odinsleep (Marvel), POV Alternating, POV First Person, POV Loki (Marvel), POV Thor (Marvel), Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Patricide, Piano, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Pre-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Prison, Revenge, Rock Stars, Stabbing, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24408469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychicmewhealer/pseuds/psychicmewhealer
Summary: A month after Civil War, before anything else in Phase 3, Thor is told to kill all the prisoners in Asgard. When he finds Loki inside, he questions the directive. The adventure that ensues is fairly predictable.--Or: Thor and Loki cry and stab people and listen to music
Relationships: Loki & Thor, Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mildly edited to take out a possibly triggering part that is utterly irrelevant to the rest of the story.

I leave the throne room puzzled. After a life-changing event you change with it, and Malekith’s invasion has raised many questions.

No, doubts.

I leave for the prison Father commanded me to look after. The question is, though, why make me do this? I'm the prince of Asgard ― I don't associate with petty prisons like these.

But he definitely doesn't mean to demean me this way.

He must need thunder to bring a situation in line?

Stepping through the broad hallways of the prison, I hear my feet boom against the squeaky clean floor. I call for anyone to show himself ― there must be an invader for Father to bring me here, I conclude ― but no one is there. I remember his instructions: _Kill everyone in sight ― including the prisoners._ Any slight sound makes me flinch and draw my hammer.

I reach the last hall. I see no one but Loki, gliding his nimble fingers on a grand piano in the dead middle of his cell, staining the keys with his crimson blood.

**I’ve been playing this piece for six hours now. Even a frost giant bleeds. The pain won’t stop. I can’t think. Parched, parched, parched, parched, parched. My fingers pour the pain, the hunger, the thirst in my heart onto the keys as though I’m not the one person who hears my cries.**

**And Father doesn’t notice. Naturally.**

Loki plays the piano flawlessly, even though I doubt he’s actually seen one in person, every finger hitting the key hitting the hammer hitting the string hitting the note. His lips are pursed, his eyes closed, crying out his misery ― in his music?

Is that even possible?  
I imagine it ― music as more than a series of pitches, a language of its own…Loki’s silent tears.  
I imagine Loki’s silent tears.

**The pain…can’t…stop. The grace note doesn’t reflect the grace in the mind, the large leaps in the left hand not reflecting my ability. My will to live. A finger in my left hand tilts, sliding in the crack between two keys, making an in-between note that sounds like a dying horse.**

**I stop in the middle of a breath, dwelling on that single note, the dying note. How could you create this horrible pitch, Loki? How could you?**

**Loki, unfit, they say. Unworthy to be king, the voices say.**

**Why do I live?**

Loki; hollow, gaunt Loki; abruptly stopped playing the piano a few seconds ago. He looks at his hands, his bones jutting through his skin. He has frozen in time. But on the inside, he’s fighting for his life. I know him well enough to know that.

Feeling a pang of guilt and sympathy, I reach into my pocket to realize the morsel of bread I’m about to give him can’t reach the cell. Stupid Thor. We all know Loki’s horrible crimes. I can rattle each of them off in systematic order. Like my father taught me to do.

Like my father made me do.

All these thoughts interrupt my main surprise at seeing Loki in the first place. “You’re alive,” I speak into the cell, staring straight into Loki’s eyes to find him inside. Or at least try.

Is there any Loki left?

“Are you alive?”

“Look at me, Thor. Is there any of me left?”

No, there isn’t, Thor. Stop trying to find Loki inside the soulless vessel.

Or is there?

“Look at this. Do you see Loki? Or a wretched skeleton, a monster, waiting for the world to fall?”

“You’re saying they’re different.” Loki, so unpredictable. Some seconds I see him as a victim, others as a demon. But what if one of them was wrong?

The fabric of reality is falling apart.

“Look at me, Thor.” I can’t. My eyes can’t draw near to the bend in time, a perceptive anomaly.

“LOOK AT ME!” He cries like a tyrant. I am forced to look over. He sounds like my father. When he told me I wasn’t worthy. _Worthy_. The word was my life. Every fact I learned, move I made, sword I drew, was because I wanted to prove to Father that I was Worthy. When he took Mjolnir, when he told me I was not Worthy, I broke inside. It was all I stood for.

And now he makes me guard a prison. How demeaning. I thought he was more ―

 _Is there something I’m missing about my father?_ All the pieces add together. My father is hiding something. Intentions. But I don’t know what he wants.

Loki stutters, then says this:

“Father is not the person you think he is.”

I give him a look of intrigue. I want to know more. He’s surprised.

“So it all started when

**Father waltzed over to Jotunheim for no reason, caused general destruction around my home world, and takes me. Why? Because he wants to seem like a benign king to see me break, brick by brick.” I enunciate every word as if he can’t hear me, my blood still dripping from my fingers, creating a puddle on my robe.**

**“My childhood was a father saying I was not Worthy and spending every last drop of my effort trying to prove otherwise. However, while you focused on training your body for war, I trained my mind. I knew Father preferred brute force, but I was more proficient in the art of mind, and if I was good enough, I may see Father giving me an embrace of approval.**

**“I studied. I studied math. Physics. Logic. Psychology. Magic. The Arts. If I worked hard enough, I may be deemed Worthy…**

**“As you walked along a path of worshiping Asgardians when you ascended to the throne, I can’t even tell you how overjoyed I was that a strong, Worthy man was ascending the throne.**

**“You were the one person I looked up to. However hard you worked, I did. However much you hated yourself, I did. You deserved the throne more than I.**

**“But I needed to be Worthy. Needed to. It was the way to live, to have a purpose. It was all I knew ― the quest for worthiness. I needed to lie, cheat and steal to end up Worthy.**

**“When I learned the truth, that I was adopted, my entire world shattered like broken glass. My entire life, defined by someone, not only unrelated to me, but choosing common heritage for the throne?! Being Worthy was my one goal, and it fell to pieces. But the brain has its ways, and I managed to convince myself in about two minutes that even if Father had adopted me, he chose you for valid reasons.**

**“So I resumed my hopeless quest to find approval from a hollow soul.**

**“The whole bargain with Thanos was obviously not going to be kept. I intended to keep Earth for as long as Father was watching. I killed all those people, took that ‘bargain’ with Thanos, stole the Infinity Stone, all for the sake of being Worthy. Maybe as a psychological counter to the doubt I experienced when I heard I was adopted, my morals were completely wiped from the picture.**

**“I remember something specific that happened on Midgard about that time. In the days when I wrecked havoc on Earth, I wandered around different houses to meet in person the people whose lives I had destroyed.**

**“I found one woman, about sixty in Midgardian years, by the looks of her. She was sobbing on her bed, nine picture frames on the wall with children. Parents. Siblings. Children.**

**“She walked down an endless flight of stairs and sat on a tarnished stool next to a vast mechanism. A simple one, but vast. It was deep black on the angle I was looking at, but when I saw from the woman’s perspective, there were white appendages sticking out from the side. She gently pressed her fingers onto the rectangular pieces, and to my surprise, beautiful music flew out. Her tears seeped through the gaps of the blocks and made their into each and every note that this odd mechanism created.**

**“Malekith’s invasion, however, changed everything. As my world was falling apart in a prison led by the same man who raised me, I was lost in my thoughts, but when I was finally alone, I found out who I was behind a mask of a purpose. My real goals. Real fears. Real desires.**

**“I started having doubts about the All-Father in prison, wondering whether my life was what I thought it was. I simply cannot tell you how splendid I felt saving the world from Malekith. I faked my death and returned to Asgard secretly so Father could stop telling him that he ‘wasn’t Worthy’ or all that. I faked Father’s position to get back on Asgard, but Father, and noticing that Loki was on his throne, accused me of disobedience and threw me in prison once more. For the past two years I have dug deeper into myself than ever before, but my self-hatred still lurks.**

**“I created a musical instrument in my room and played, remembering the grieving woman and duplicating what I saw that day. I played. And played. It was the way out, I discovered when I saw that woman. A way to speak that cannot be said in words.**

**“The one thing I know is that I’m a monster. And I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I don’t know how to live with myself.” I was teary before, but now I’m crying the oceans of the Nine Realms. I hope Thor can realize that I’m not faking this.**

**I can’t fake this.**

I take it all in at once, like a blow to the chest. I realize how much he knew about me without me telling, his feelings sinking into me. When he said that I hate myself, I didn’t know he knew. That my façade of arrogance was to make me feel better about myself. So Father could believe it. So I could believe it. When he made an illusion of himself after Mother died, I understand now, he wanted to be like me. Show he was confident. And now Loki is telling me what I didn’t know I knew.

On the outside, he had frozen in time. But on the inside, was fighting for his life.

My left eye feels a sting, and lets out a something. A tear. I haven’t felt one for a while.

“You’re not a monster, Loki.” He isn’t. He’s not a ripple in reality. He’s another person trying to get by. A talented, intelligent one at that, but one who is trying to live with himself. And he can’t _because he was manipulated_.

_Like me._

“So…” I asked him, “you take the lead. What do we do about it?”

“We end it.”

There is an eerie silence between the two of us. I know he could be manipulating me. He’s Loki after all: master manipulator. He even did before, to make me believe he was ― _evil…_

“Let’s kill Odin.”

Loki smiles, in the same devilish way he always has. But this time, he means it.

**Thor used Mjolnir’s electromagnets to manipulate the prison wiring, allowing me to leave. I attempt at every moment to make sure he knows I’m not tricking him into it. Thanking him. Trying to be bromantic and utterly failing. Laughing at his jokes, but if they’re actually funny, not if they’re about his girlfriend saying that he’s Thor (sore) she can hardly walk, because I can hardly walk from such little food in prison. Asking him about Midgardian culture. When we stop off at the kitchen to eat leftovers for lunch, Thor eats normally and I try to eat with anything but a fork and knife. I try to explain to him that it’s symbolic of my mental transformation from a picture perfect blah blah blah, but Thor tells me to shut up and let him eat his duck in peace. He either already knows or he doesn’t care for symbolism ― probably the latter. But mostly he loves his duck.**

**Thor repeats his plan for the twenty millionth time, even though I know the reason he’s doing it is to convince me he’s smart even though I’m obviously smarter than him. He doesn’t care for plans, but he does for smashing people with hammers. So I go on without him.**

**He’s in his afternoon siesta, but to confirm it, I tell him that we can waltz up there and kill him, I create an illusion of a dust bunny in Odin’s bedroom. He says OK. (Odin has always been a deep sleeper.) I make it appear to the guards that we’re not walking in the room, easily fooling them, except for one who lets us in anyway on the condition that he won’t be blamed if we’ll be caught.**

**The mindless gore begins here. Taking advantage of the fact that Odin never sleeps in armor, I draw my rusted dagger and stab him until he awakens. He can’t scream. Thor smashes him in the head with his hammer and I stab him countless times, as fast as we can until about five minutes later. The wounds are so deep his healing factor can’t kick in. We wait…and wait…and wait…**

**He’s dead.**

**Thor bellows a victory cry, and my ears feel like bleeding. I shouldn’t have done this, I joke to myself.**

**When he finishes bellowing, he guffaws randomly like he did for the past two hours. I join him. Laughing is contagious. We embrace each other in a warm bromantic hug. This is the way it should be.**

I walk down the aisle with my hammer in hand, and Loki was right, all the ladies are staring at me, not him. Heimdall’s booming voice was actually quite scary, but I went through the oaths fast, with Loki by my side to stare at if anything went awry, to encourage me to go on. Everyone was talking to one another, relaxed and not really paying attention, but I start my speech anyway.

“Hi everybody!”

People are holding in laughter and applauding. I guess they want to be polite.

“I didn’t prepare a speech so I decided to not make one.”

No response from the crowd.

“Instead, I would like to introduce someone who will.”

Loki and Heimdall simultaneously face-plant.

“My brother has supported me throughout the emotional journey of Father’s death. And within him I found a friend.

“May Loki approach to speak?” I hear multiple gasps from the crowd. After all, he was in prison…

Loki glared at me painfully. “I know I told you it would be nothing big, but I lied…I sincerely wanted you to speak. I’m sorry. Come up.”

**“Odin is dead.” Thor looks in confusion, but the audience is hooked in immediately.**

**“Odin, the king you all hated, the warlord, the one who wanted to see you in pain ― is dead.” The audience is speechless. Finally, people are listening to me. Me saying what they couldn’t bear to.**

**“And you know why? Because we killed him.” Usually, this confession is guilt ridden. It still is. My conscience still hates me for what I’ve done. But I know I did the right thing. He couldn’t reign for any longer. I know Thor feels the same way. But I keep the confession confident and concise.**

**“We killed him because we know the pain he inflicts on you. Because it was inflicted on us.” Murmurs flicker among the crowd.**

**“I still feel the pain today. His voice still lingers in my head telling me that I am not good enough! That I am not Worthy! He made sure that his words were my world. Were all that mattered. That I needed to be perfect to be approved.” I emphasize each word roaring throughout the vast chamber. “And he succeeded.**

**“When I was consulting with Thor yesterday about Midgardian culture, a song came up. He had heard it from his Midgardian friend Darcy, who had it deep in her library of music, not that she ever listened to the song. But Thor did. If I would have heard it, I would have cried. And Thor almost did too. Because it revealed the deepest secrets of both of us. After I speak you will hear it and you will feel it and you will cry too.” I can see Thor in the back, his eyes glinting as if something is stinging them. He remembers it.**

**“My heart is still shattered from his damage. So is Thor’s. So is all of yours. I’m not even psychic and I can feel it.**

**“But we will rise again and take back what is rightfully ours. Not the universe. Not Midgard. Not even Asgard. But we will take back our freedom.” I laugh under my breath as I realize how much I sound like Stalin. I keep having to remind myself that I’m not him, that I'm actually trying to give them freedom and not give myself power.**

**But maybe that’s what I want. To give myself power after so long in chains.**

**Maybe I’m no different from who I was when I made the deal with Thanos.**

**But let’s not mind the audience with that right now. They don't need to know my personal problems. I can deal with that later.**

**“And now. Let us celebrate.”**

Loki walks off the stage nonchalantly to gain support with his staff once more. He fakes a smile. “So… I did…”

“No, you actually did amazingly,” I say.

“No, thank you, that's not what I'm talking about. Why was everyone staring at me?”

“Your weight is the envy of every Midgardian female.”

“Thanks, but I don't think my ribs are.”

I almost slap him on the back until I realize that he lost all his muscle, giving him a light nudge towards the food instead. He gladly hoards a year’s worth of lost food and runs to the corner to feast.

“You know, Thor,” he juts in as he starts eating, “I have a surprise for you.” He immediately returns to his food.

A sphere from the floor floats and opens to reveal four Midgardian men meddling with a series of large black boxes and wires.

“Sorry about this,” the man the middle apologizes. “I was called up on a short notice and offered… was it… a room’s worth of gold?” You can write me the check.” His voice is breathy and relaxed, his jutting cheekbones and pitch black hair making him surprisingly handsome. I briefly ask him what a check is and he rolls his eyes right when I figure it out. I nod my head right and he gives me an approving look. Somehow, he knows what I’m talking about.

“Sorry about the misunderstanding,” he speaks into the microphone. “We are The Starset Society, and we’ve known about you for years. Only now did we spread the Message of Earth’s inevitable demise, dying knowledge that you have known for millennia.”

Dead silence.

“And we’ve been called up to play… _Carnivore_ , was it? Sorry, it’s like three in the morning in Columbus…” he strokes his hand through his styled hair. I shrug. He starts.

_Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun_

This is the song from Darcy’s library, I know it.

_Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun_

The memories are coming back

_Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun_

I let out a tear

_Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun_

I’m almost happy now

I look behind me

Loki wets his food with his tears

The pause gives me time to think

And I’m happy now

Odin’s gone

Thank you, Loki

The guitar is strummed

# Epilogue

Dustin Bates had massive circles under his eyes from his night of interplanetary touring, but without the cover story, people would doubt Dr. Wise’s existence. Dustin barely managed to open the wooden door with the words LARA GODFREY along with the atomic TSS logo. “How’s the Wise story going? We need it by lunch.”

“I’m still editing.” A blonde woman twirling in a spinny chair glared at Dustin. He blinked, trying to stay objective. Lara was always an awkward person to be around.

“Sorry, Lara..” Dustin turned back to her. “Go home and I’ll write the rest.” Ron knew he would be the real one to eventually write the story. He lit his cigar.

“Finally,” she joked.

“I’ll write it,” Ron groaned, and subsequently began typing at lightning speed on his jet black Dell laptop, cigar smoke clouding over his head.

During lunch break, Dustin tiptoed to the piano room inside, leaving the rest of the TSS in peace. He glanced at the sketch of the Ophiuchus constellation that he made one sleepless night. A man holding a snake was a man holding back lies. He needed to save the world for that.

Anyone smart would know Aston Wise didn't exist, because he _couldn’t_. He was a cover story so the real head, himself, wouldn’t be discovered. Art comes from the heart and controlling the heart is wrong. Any artist would know.

 _Loki_ would know.

He wasn't the god of mischief, or evil, or even a god. He was a symbol of bending reality. Ideas. Art. Music. Self-expression.

Odin tried to control his heart, but Loki took it back.

_Society try to take mine. Now I'll take it back._

He played.

 _Even a well lit place can hide salvation_ _  
_ _A map to a one-man maze that never sees the sun_

Suddenly a voice appeared behind him.

_Where the lost are the heroes and the thieves are left to drown_

Dustin turned around to find a horned man behind him.

“You know you were thinking out loud the whole time, right?” _Loki. Dammit._

Dustin rose from his chair. A little respect wouldn’t hurt. “How did you know the words to that?”

“To be honest, I just learned them a few minutes ago,” smiled Loki.


	2. Epilogue

Dustin Bates had massive circles under his eyes from his night of interplanetary touring, but without the cover story, people would doubt Dr. Wise’s existence. Dustin barely managed to open the wooden door with the words LARA GODFREY along with the atomic TSS logo. “How’s the Wise story going? We need it by lunch.”

“I’m still editing.” A blonde woman twirling in a spinny chair glared at Dustin. He blinked, trying to stay objective. Lara was always an awkward person to be around.

“Sorry, Lara..” Dustin turned back to her. “Go home and I’ll write the rest.” Ron knew he would be the real one to eventually write the story. He lit his cigar.

“Finally,” she joked.

“I’ll write it,” Ron groaned, and subsequently began typing at lightning speed on his jet black Dell laptop, cigar smoke clouding over his head.

During lunch break, Dustin tiptoed to the piano room inside, leaving the rest of the TSS in peace. He glanced at the sketch of the Ophiuchus constellation that he made one sleepless night. A man holding a snake was a man holding back lies. He needed to save the world for that.

Anyone smart would know Aston Wise didn't exist, because he _couldn’t_. He was a cover story so the real head, himself, wouldn’t be discovered. Art comes from the heart and controlling the heart is wrong. Any artist would know.

 _Loki_ would know.

He wasn't the god of mischief, or evil, or even a god. He was a symbol of bending reality. Ideas. Art. Music. Self-expression.

Odin tried to control his heart, but Loki took it back.

_Society try to take mine. Now I'll take it back._

He played.

 _Even a well lit place can hide salvation_ _  
_ _A map to a one-man maze that never sees the sun_

Suddenly a voice appeared behind him.

_Where the lost are the heroes and the thieves are left to drown_

Dustin turned around to find a horned man behind him.

“You know you were thinking out loud the whole time, right?” _Loki. Dammit._

Dustin rose from his chair. A little respect wouldn’t hurt. “How did you know the words to that?”

“To be honest, I just learned them a few minutes ago,” smiled Loki.


End file.
